


I Gave You All

by kkismygod



Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Aftermath of battle, Anakin angst, Naboo - Freeform, anakin fluff, he deserves it, someone needs to hold this boy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:41:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25659898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kkismygod/pseuds/kkismygod
Summary: Our war-torn baby just needs a hug
Comments: 2
Kudos: 20





	I Gave You All

It came as a relief when you learned you were being sent to Naboo. The Council had listed it as a low-rank mission, one where you simply had to escort Padme back to her home planet so she could discuss potential habitation of war refugees in the unused marshlands. 

Anakin and a few of his men had been sent first, to clear the way in case any unwelcome surprises were waiting on Naboo. Good thing, too-- a legion of droids had been waiting by the landing zone, ready to attack as soon as they touched down. Anakin spent days fighting them back, requesting backup multiple times and defending Theed from Dooku’s forces. In the end, he prevailed, but not without the inescapable, bitter results of war.

The first thing you noticed when you stepped off the transport ship was the smell. Smoke, black and thick and burning, stung your nose. The domes of great buildings sunk in on themselves, columns of charred wreckage dissipating into the oncoming dusk. It wreaked of dead bodies scattered across the city, hanging off window sills and lying crumpled beneath elegant marble staircases. 

You pulled your shirt up over your face to block the overwhelming stench, and looked at your boots as you walked through the city. Your eyes followed the blood running through fissures in the cracked stone on the ground, splattered onto crumbling pillars which were once eggshell white. This was not enemy blood-- no, droids did not bleed. Every drop of red that stained the once lovely marble streets was the blood of innocent men, women, children, and soldiers. It was cruel, really, how the battle had ended in a victory, yet all that remained were the reminders of all that had been lost.

You pretended not to see the tears in Padme’s eyes as you escorted her to the palace. It must have been unimaginably painful, seeing her home in ruins, her people littering the streets.

Surprisingly, the Royal Palace had remained relatively unscathed, save for a few shattered windows and blaster holes. You knew this was because Anakin had set up a defensive base here-- he knew it was an important landmark, a beacon of hope for the people of Naboo, and if he saved anything, it had to be this. You met him in the throne room.

He was cold. 

Normally when Anakin came out with a win, he was proud and boasting and confident. The adrenaline fueled him, and he yearned for more. But this time was different. This time, he had been hit in a place close to his heart, and people died because of it. Innocents were not spared this time around, and for each life he let slip through his fingers, he would never forgive himself.

You didn’t have to be a force user in order to feel the cold flames lick their way into his chest, squeeze his heart, and flicker in his eyes. You loved him too much to stay silent as he burned, but he pulled away when you tried reaching for him.

He needed time.

You watched his back stalk out of the throne room and out into the streets of the battleground-- the funeral ground. The double doors slammed closed behind him, but Padme was too busy embracing her family to notice. Everyone else-- important palace personnel, Rex and his men, bodyguards, handmaidens, and the Queen herself, were already walking around the polished halls, discussing plans of rehabilitation for the city. You wished they would be quiet for just a moment, to take a second and mourn the lives that had all too recently been swept up by the cruel winds of war. 

But life in this city kept on moving, that was for sure. You excused yourself from the throne room, needing some room to breathe as well. After being dismissed, you took your time walking along the halls of the royal palace. The shine and glamour of the granite floors were scuffed with boot marks, the shattered stained windows bending orange and purple light across the empty expanse of the hallway. It was much too quiet for a city, much too barren for a bustling capital building.

The only reason it was still standing was because of Anakin. You wished he could see that, or at least see it in a way where it meant something other than complete and utter failure in his eyes. He saved the building, but not the people. Death was a sensitive topic for him, and you knew this was going to hit him hard. 

_ Curse Dooku _ , you kicked at a broken chunk of granite with the toe of your boot, tiny petals engraved into the rock. It went skipping across the floor, falling into a charred pit dug from the ground by a blaster.  _ All of this senseless violence… and for what? _

It wasn’t fair how Anakin was always the one who got caught up in it. Yes, he was a Jedi Knight, a Republic General, a prophesied hero. But he was also just a boy, and he did not ask to hold the weight of the entire world on his shoulders.

He came to you while you were on the balcony. His footsteps were quiet, yet heavy. So was the weight of his shoulders, hunched forward, head hanging low as if too burdensome to lift any longer. He leaned against the stone railing with his forearms, folding his hands over the edge as if in prayer. 

It was softer up here, far away from the death and destruction that plagued the streets below. A gentle breeze smelling of warm earth and an impending sunset played with your baby hairs, ticking your cheek and ruffling Anakin’s curls. A cobweb stuck to your pinky finger, thin and pale and fragile, and you weren’t sure how it got there, but you let it cling to you in the wind. 

He didn’t say anything for a long while, and you knew his silence meant deeper things were boiling underneath, so you looked at him. His face was still set-- harsh and cold. The golden orb of the setting sun illuminated his head like a halo, but he seemed to suck all warmth from the star. A new gash across his forehead stuck out against the pallor of his skin, red with dried blood, and his cheeks were streaked with ash. 

And then he turned and met your gaze, and though he didn’t say a word, you saw everything you needed to know.

Your arms wound around him on their own accord, pushing his head into your neck and anchoring him to you with a hand around his waist. You clung to him hard, like maybe if you held him close enough you could fit all of his crumbling pieces back together. He, in turn, loosely circled your waist with his arms, applying the gentlest of pressures to the small of your back. 

Shaky breaths washed over your shoulder, and you tightened your grip on him in response. He was falling apart, slowly and thoroughly beneath your palms, and it was all you could do but hold him as it happened.

“You gave them everything.”

He sunk to the ground at your words, and you fell to your knees with him. There were no tears, but he was trembling, and with the agony that claimed his voice, he may as well have been.

“It wasn’t enough. It’s never enough.”

“It’s all you have.”

It was moments like this that you wished he would just leave the Jedi Order altogether and never look back. This war was killing him-- no, more than that. It was killing his  _ spirit _ . The unshakable, constant burning of the flame that was Anakin skywalker  _ flickered _ . He was losing oxygen, burning out. A young boy, whose youth was ripped from his grasp and then sent headfirst into a war there was little hope of winning-- broken, yet as you looked into his eyes, you saw strength.

  
Because no matter how bad things got, no matter how many lives were lost or how many times he felt like giving up, Anakin Skywalker was a fighter. And while this battle may have shaken him to his core and forced him to his knees, he would get back up. He would put one foot in front of the other, and he would wipe the ash from his cheeks and blink the blood from his eyes, and he would  _ fight _ \-- with the burning rage of the twin suns of Tatooine, for the people who needed protecting, and the people who needed freeing. That, in the end, was Anakin Skywalker’s mission.


End file.
